1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices used for feeding animals and, more particularly, to a modular animal feeding apparatus having a vertically stacked configuration that automatically releases separately contained servings of food at separate times.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's busy society it is not uncommon for all members of a household to be away from their residence for extended periods of time due to long working hours, business travel, vacations, etc. Such absence from the household poses a problem for any pet animals, such as dogs and cats, that may be owned by a member of the household. Specifically, a pet owner may have to hire somebody to feed the pet, or, even less desirable, the pet may be required to wait an extended period of time to receive a meal.
There have been several attempts to design various devices to automatically feed pet animals. The devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,230,300 to Mezhinsky, 4,735,171 to Essex, and 4,733,634 to Hooser, all suffer from the disadvantage that portions of food are delivered to the pet from the same container which requires that the pet eat the same type of food for each meal. The devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,109,799 to Lader, 4,350,120 to Bittle, 4,069,793 to Gower, and 4,044,722 to Bradshaw, deliver food to the pet from separate containers but suffer from the disadvantage that they are rather large, bulky and occupy significant amounts of space. The devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,485,765 to Schwartz et al. and 3,955,537 to Yujiri, also deliver food to the pet from separate containers but suffer from the disadvantage that they utilize complex rotating components that can easily become obstructed by food particles becoming lodged between moving parts.
Thus, there is a need for an animal feeding apparatus which overcomes the disadvantages of the above described devices.